The Press Complaints Commission has criticised the Sun for putting secretly filmed footage of a supermarket worker, who had been convicted of distributing child pornography, on its website.

A complaint to the PCC, made by the man's mother, argued that the recording and publication of the footage online broke rules against the use of hidden cameras.

The Sun put the clip of the man - who had been convicted in 2007 of distributing, making and possessing pornographic images of children - online on February 21 in conjunction with an article in the main paper.

A Sun journalist had secretly filmed the man, who is on the sex offenders register, working in the supermarket and also obtained a photograph of him making a delivery to a nursery school kitchen.

In its defence, the Sun said that there was a "clear public interest" in the story. The paper added that the use of "subterfuge" to film the man was "acceptable" because it was the "only way of showing readers the complainant's son at work in the store".

The PCC agreed that there was sufficient public interest justification to print story as a whole and that the Sun was "entitled to highlight, and comment robustly on, this situation".

However, the PCC said it was more difficult to justify the taking and use of the footage of the man at work because the public interest element of the story only related to the delivery to the nursery.

"On this occasion, there was no dispute that he worked for the supermarket, and the footage was not necessary to prove it," said the PCC in its ruling.

The Sun removed the footage from its website and has published the PCC's ruling online.

However, the PCC rejected other points of complaint made about the article in the Sun newspaper.

The ruling is one of the first the PCC has made against audio visual content on a newspaper website since its remit was extended to include online output last year.

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